Maybe it's because of the profession I work in, but I am really curious about how people think/feel about Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc. I personally have never felt the need to share my life with perfect strangers & I am amazed at how many people do.

I do have a Facebook account, but only as a means to see certain peoples photos etc. My personnal Facebook account reveals absolutely nothing about me, not even that I am female. I don't have a Twitter account & can't think why I would. My life is just not that interesting &, I must say, those "famous people" whose tweets I have read, aren't that interesting either. I do have a LinkedIn account, that is more a business thing than the others, that I do keep updated, I also only link to those people that I actually know rather than those that would like to know me, especially because of my position. Most recruiters I know do a search online, first, to see what comes up with candidates on Facebook or whatever. Then they do the usual reference checks etc. Being the Registrar of a private college, my Director & I, do a similar thing & we have sometimes been absolutely gobsmacked about what people do post online.

I guess the question I am asking is, why do people feel the need to share so much of their life online &, once it's online, do they understand that once it is online, it can affect the rest of their life/future?

I rarely use facebook save to post pictures of trips up mountains or sporting events I compete in, basically anything I'm proud of. Well, thats what I do nowadays anyway, I'm rarely on it. I have a twitter account that is primarily used for my band, but even then I don't think I've done anything on it for a year or something ridiculous. Social Media just doesn't interest me anymore, I don't feel the need to tell everyone I've been to the gym, or post pictures of my lunch or tell people why my day wasn't so great, or why I hate my ex girlfriend or whatever. Like I said, I use it to show off achievements now or to organise events with friends and promote my band. Otherwise, not interested in them.

_________________"You are the universe expressing itself as a Human for a little while..."

I have a facebook account because I initially wanted to see what it was all about. I don't use it much, partly because I don't see the point and partly because of my job.

I use twitter all the time, not for posting things myself, I must have made barely 20 posts a year, but because it is by far the best way to get the news you personally want.

I follow various F1 feeds, cycling feeds, science feeds plus some random other stuff that interests me. Due to the simple nature in which people post, it's quicker than the internet for breaking stories. If you only follow things you are interested in, you hardly ever get rubbish in your timeline. The fact I can also set up personal lists so that a feed can be just motorsport, just cycling or whatever your personal interest in, it saves trawling through websites just to find things you want to read.

I use facebook largely to keep in touch with friends who have gone their separate ways. It's an easy way to check out what they're up to and keep in touch largely. But I don't post stuff myself very often.Twitter I spend half my time on but that's because it's an easy way to keep up to date with stuff. It's largely sport/environment stuff but it means I normally get the news I want more quickly than spending time on various websites.

I'm not really into sharing or looking at others profiles on Facebook. I usually use chat quite heavily (instead of sms), post/read on some groups (like the group from my studies to know what is going on at uni) and wish happy birthday. I don't really read the timeline very carefully. Occasionally I "like" something or post some comment, but I'm yet to do this in 2013...

I use twitter during F1 races, launches, tests and other sports events and keep in touch with 2-3 people. You can regret following me @dziF1

_________________Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.Mark Twain

I use Facebook and Twitter. Facebook is a cheap way to keep in touch with international friends, and Twitter is useful for building up a following which will come in handy if I ever get this novel published! Twitter can land you in some awesome conversations with random people though, and after the Monaco GP3 race last year I managed a brief chat with Connor Daly!

_________________Organiser of the single most low-tech Robot Wars tournament in history, PM for details!

I don't like the concept of Facebook. I had a Myspace back when that was the norm. It was useful until I got a contract mobile phone. Once I had "Free" texts, it fell by the wayside. However, it would probably have been sensible to get one during Uni. A lot of my year (as with any year of any course really) went to all four corners of the earth. I don't really care as I wasn't close to any of them, and the few people I did like I still know well enough to call or text. I think the concept is pretty good, but so many people have taken to it like a religion. I hate people who are down the pub, ignoring conversations to check their facebook. If someone posts "lol, had beans on toast roflcopteromgbbq" and you don't reply for a few hours, so what? On the whole, I think I'm pro-Facebook and anti-Facebook obsessive users. The people in the mid-ground are probably more sensible than me (non-user).

I had to use Twitter once for a course at Uni. So I have a twitter account out there with one post on it. I didn't really see the point. While somewhat amusing to see what Stephen Fry had to say, for the most part, I dislike celebrity culture and find most of them as exciting as they actually are, which is not very. I don't think it's a bad format for TV shows to get questions etc as such. I dislike when you are watching a TV show and they keep mentioning twitter though.

LinkedIn - never used.

However, I do post on forums a fair bit I suppose. I'm on here a lot. I'm on GAMEFAQs a lot. I'm sometimes on the xbox 360 site I use. But that is more to do with boredom than anything else.

I use Facebook a lot. When I first started using it, it was great because I got in contact with old friends I hadn't spoken to for years. Now I use it more like a mail. Send links, photos videos to friends and family. Chat with my relatives in Canada. Also a good way to keep track of peoples birthdays. Not just to write "happy birthday" on their wall but to actually be reminded so that I can call them. Also to "Like" certain groups of interest. In that way I get news that would probably be harder to get.Having said that, I am not one to share my entire life in the form of status updates. I rarely share anything very personal. It's a choice.

I have facebook mostly as a means of keeping some kind of contact with my family/friends who are scattered to all 4 corners of the Earth. I rarely [if ever] post anything on facebook, and I have no personal info on there at all.

Twitter I stalk bands, F1 feeds, science feeds etc. because as others have said, its great for finding out the latest news. Also I've found out about gigs before they've been announced on the ticket sites, so very useful for a music fan like me to keep abreast of who's touring when. I have posted maybe 3 tweets in total.

_________________The two most powerful warriors are patience and time…so remember: great achievements take time, there is no overnight success.

Maybe it's because of the profession I work in, but I am really curious about how people think/feel about Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc. I personally have never felt the need to share my life with perfect strangers & I am amazed at how many people do.

I do have a Facebook account, but only as a means to see certain peoples photos etc. My personnal Facebook account reveals absolutely nothing about me, not even that I am female. I don't have a Twitter account & can't think why I would. My life is just not that interesting &, I must say, those "famous people" whose tweets I have read, aren't that interesting either. I do have a LinkedIn account, that is more a business thing than the others, that I do keep updated, I also only link to those people that I actually know rather than those that would like to know me, especially because of my position. Most recruiters I know do a search online, first, to see what comes up with candidates on Facebook or whatever. Then they do the usual reference checks etc. Being the Registrar of a private college, my Director & I, do a similar thing & we have sometimes been absolutely gobsmacked about what people do post online.

I guess the question I am asking is, why do people feel the need to share so much of their life online &, once it's online, do they understand that once it is online, it can affect the rest of their life/future?

I don't have any of this but ask myself about LinkedIn for professional reasons. I never understood how people could talk so much about themselves even behind closed doors, so don't ask me why they feel the need to spread it worldwide.

Now I know someone who didn't get a job because not being on Facebook, she was considered as "asocial"... As if they couldn't get a "real" feeling about the "real" sociability of the "real" person they were talking with...

_________________As my brother said : "I've got the brain of a four year old. I'll bet he was glad to be rid of it".

Normally I would have put this in the joke thread but, considering I started this one, I thought I should put it here. My ex boss, now retired, who I had lunch with on Friday, emailed me this one. I love it:

Should I Really Join Facebook? When I bought my Blackberry, I thought about the 30-year business I ran with 1800 employees, all without a cell phone that plays music, takes videos, pictures and communicates with Facebook and Twitter.

I signed up under duress for Twitter and Facebook, so my 7 kids, their spouses, my 13 grand kids and 2 great grand kids could communicate with me in the modern way. I figured I could handle something as simple as Twitter with only 140 characters of space.

My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of everything except the bowel movements of the entire next generation. I am not ready to live like this. I keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf bag.

The kids bought me a GPS for my last birthday because they say I get lost every now and then going over to the grocery store or library. I keep that in a box under my tool bench with the Blue tooth (it's red) I am supposed to use when I drive. I wore it once and was standing in line at Barnes and Noble talking to my wife and everyone in the nearest 50 yards was glaring at me. I had to take my hearing aid out to use it, and I got a little loud.

The GPS looked pretty smart on my dash board but the lady inside that gadget was the most annoying, rudest person I had run into in a long time. Every 10 minutes, she would sarcastically say, "Re-calc-u-lating." You would think that she could be nicer. It was like she could barely tolerate me. She would let go with a deep sigh and then tell me to make a U-turn at the next light. Then if I made a right turn instead. Well, it was not a good relationship...

When I get really lost now, I call my wife and tell her the name of the cross streets and while she is starting to develop the same tone as Gypsy, the GPS lady, at least she loves me.

To be perfectly frank, I am still trying to learn how to use the cordless phones in our house. We have had them for 4 years, but I still haven't figured out how I can lose three phones all at once and have to run around digging under chair cushions, checking bathrooms, and the dirty laundry baskets when the phone rings.

The world is just getting too complex for me. They even mess me up every time I go to the grocery store. You would think they could settle on something themselves but this sudden "paper or plastic?" every time I check out just knocks me for a loop. I bought some of those cloth reusable bags to avoid looking confused, but I never remember to take them with me.

Now I toss it back to them. When they ask me, "Paper or plastic?" I just say, "Doesn't matter to me. I am bi-sacksual." Then it's their turn to stare at me with a blank look. I was recently asked if I tweet. I answered, "No, but I do fart a lot."

I use Facebook a lot. It helps me keep in touch with old friends. Even more, through other message boards over the last 14 years, I have made lots and lots of new friends that I do not get to see very often because they are scattered all across the country and around the world. Facebook helps me feel like I am closer to these friends than I would be otherwise. I try to stay on top of security settings and only allow friends to see my updates. Even so, I only post a couple of times a week and it does not reveal anything about my personality that my friends don't already know. Unless I live to break the century mark, I am in the latter half of my life, so I am not terribly worried about what my company will think if it were to read everything I post. If my twenty-plus years of work history are not enough to establish myself, and if they are uptight enough to get upset about what I post, I'm not sure I would want to work for them anyway.

That said, I do follow some common-sense rules. I don't post about work (except in general terms) and I don't post the company name in my updates. I don't have any radical hate- or violence-related views and if I did I wouldn't post them on Facebook. I try to be a positive person because, when looking at my friends, those people are a lot more fun to hang out with then the negative ones. I realize bad things happen and I will post sympathetic remarks to anyone, but it is very difficult to enjoy the company of people who spend all their time complaining, whether in real life or online, so don't be that type of person.

In the end, a little common sense goes a long way. Though you are responding to and with friends, pretty much anything you post should be considered public (so don't say or post things that you would not say or do in public). Also, if a company is so uptight that it is concerned with the lifestyle choices of employees, you may not want to work there anyway.

I use facebook, but I've grown out of writing pointless statuses etc now. I use it for keeping in contact with my friends mainly, and uploading pictures - facebook is a pretty common denominator (at least among the younger generation) and its almost odd not to have one, so for group messaging and arranging things it's the best thing since sliced bread. Its a good place for uploading photos as well.

However I'm not such a fan of how open it is - I once googled my name and the first picture that came up was of me! When I was trying to get a job after uni I set some ridiculous privacy settings and had to un-tag over 300 inappropriate/drunk photos so now I look like rather sensible and boring!

I've always found twitter very self indulgent - I mean who would really want to follow me? I tried it last year and got bored after a week... but I've recently gone back on it as a means of getting the news I'm interested in and stuff. We'll see if I get bored again!

I've toyed with the idea of LinkedIn, haven't got one yet but I'm looking to move jobs within the next year or so, so I might look into getting that

I think everyone will have their own point of view about how they want to present themselves to the world. If you ask How much is too much? You'll get different answers frm everyone. Having said that i too use Facebook but barely post much... Its just to keep in touch with family and some friends and yes like someone said on here to keep track of birthdays. Another thing atleast in India companies havent started looking up online to see what you do, atleast i think they havent but i am not sure. I have been self employed for quiet sometime. But yeah, i do use facebook and i have a linkedin account for keeping in touch with some business updates. Never was interested in twitter.

I think everyone will have their own point of view about how they want to present themselves to the world. If you ask How much is too much? You'll get different answers frm everyone. Having said that i too use Facebook but barely post much... Its just to keep in touch with family and some friends and yes like someone said on here to keep track of birthdays. Another thing atleast in India companies havent started looking up online to see what you do, atleast i think they havent but i am not sure. I have been self employed for quiet sometime. But yeah, i do use facebook and i have a linkedin account for keeping in touch with some business updates. Never was interested in twitter.

I use Facebook quite a lot since I think it is a fantastic way to keep in touch with friends and plan events etc. I used to use it very religious to keep everyone abreast of all the amazingly interesting things that are going on in the life of Holloway, but I think I have very much grown out of that now...apart from maybe posting a few bits and pieces that I may think are funny or want to brag about aha.

I was part of the Bebo revolution when I was in high-school and Jesus Christ, when I look back at my old Bebo echo I realise what little donkey openings me and my friends really were, we were the teenagers that I have grown up to hate...even though I am only twenty, but still, I hate em'.

I try to use Twitter and Tumblr now as I want to get into a job in the Media in the next few years, so I try to post about current events, entertainment news, politics with a little bit of philosophy thrown and the odd few tid-bits about what is going on in my life.

Facebook: Love it, post a lot of photos, use it to chat with my friends and coordinate stuff, have to admit that I did used to do the pointless status updates but not so much now. Have changed my privacy settings since I came to uni so you have to be my friend to see the more "interesting" photos. I've always wondered what people post that stops them getting jobs in the future though, along as it's not "me at an EDL rally", I'm not sure a few drunken snaps are THAT bad,.

Twitter: Have my own personal account but hardly touch it as I don't see the point. On the other hand, I run the account for my lacrosse club (shameless plug: @UoNMensLax) and use it all the time. It's a great way of giving news, score updates or whatever you want to reach a lot of people quickly.

LinkedIn: Going to start using it more now that I am about to graduate, have some decent contacts through a summer job I did in consecutive years which it would be handy to keep.

_________________"When the seagulls follow the trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea."

Facebook I have never got into, especially when you have certain relatives who will have a full blown domestic argument on there, so I just stay out of it!Also my personal feeling is that if you need facebook to keep in touch with someone, or to remind you of their birthdays, would they really still be in your life at all if it wasnt for this site? should be a sign to drop and move on, of course I understand if it is family that live the other side of the world, but when you got a family member just down the road you never visit and only chat to them on Facebook, you have issues imo

Twitter, I love, why? because you do not have to have it attacthed to YOU personally, you can create whatever name you like, and just tweet, its not as personal as Facebook, I follow maybe a couple of close friends in real life on there, but everyone else, I have never met, and will likely never do so, but to me that is the beauty of it, you are judged simply by what you write, not what you look like etc, being disabled and having a skin disorder this is fantastic.

Also the old cliche of twitter just being celebs and such saying what they had for dinner or lunch, is old, there is so much more on there. I knew when each car launch was on due to twitter, if I was out and unable to get on a PC, I could use my phone and still see pictures from the launches, you got the reactions to certain sporting events, and world events, you can have so many interesting discussions and debates about almost anything in the world, the 140 character limit does become a pain at times, but otherwise you would end up with long essays like this post everytime someone had something to say, I have been on twitter, maybe one and a half years and have sent more than 12000 tweets, have about 350 followers, and follow many more myself, it is fantastic if you have a wide range of interests, as it is an easy way of getting brief summaries of events that you are interested in, and often quicker than any news site or forum can tell you.

Over all I would say I am in favour of using social media, but you do need to be careful, as stated in could prevent you getting a job, but I like twitter, and would never give it to any prospecting employer, its my freedom to say what I want...